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Television evangelist and pastor John Hagee on Sunday told congregants — and a national and international audience watching live — that he no longer opposes a proposed ordinance that seeks to protect the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in San Antonio.

He read a statement during his Cornerstone Church's two morning worship services Sunday, reflecting confidence in the latest version of the ordinance, which is expected to go before the City Council on Sept. 5. And he claimed credit for a key wording change that ended his opposition to the measure.

At issue was a clause that would have allowed the council to consider whether candidates for city boards and commissions had discriminated against gay and transgender people in “word or deed” — which opponents saw as an invitation to consider their socially conservative views on homosexuality.

“All of the previous language that infringed upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of exercise of religion and the ability for people of faith to serve on City Council has been expunged,” Hagee told the Cornerstone audience, prompting a standing ovation at the first Sunday service.

Many of the other socially conservative local pastors and Christian business owners who raised objections to the original proposal remain opposed to the revised version.

The ordinance's advocates contend it is an overdue update to protect a vulnerable class of people without negating the rights of others. It would add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the city's current anti-discrimination policy.

Hagee said he got the city attorney and Bernal to agree to the revisions in writing when they met Tuesday.

Though Bernal said he had made the revisions almost two weeks before that meeting, he said Sunday that the agreement and meeting with Hagee underscored the benefits of respectful dialogue.

“I was happy to share the changes with the pastor and his son,” Bernal said Sunday, referring to Mathew Hagee, the executive pastor at Cornerstone, who was also present.

“The ability to speak face to face about what the ordinance does and doesn't do has proven to me time and time again to be the most effective method,” Bernal said.

Hagee said he had denounced the earlier draft through his church's email network “weeks ago” and sent a letter to the council and mayor asking to discuss it. He spoke against it from the pulpit Aug. 4 and again on the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck talk show Aug. 5.

Hagee said he changed course the next day, after meeting with Bernal and reviewing the changes with his attorney and the Justice Foundation, a conservative legal defense firm.

Another lawyer working with a local network of pastors and business people to defeat the proposal said Sunday the revisions aren't enough because the ordinance could still penalize firms and individuals for acting in accordance with their religion.

“No protection for people in how they speak and express their religious beliefs,” said Robert P. Wilson, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom. “On one hand, (the proposal) is promoting equality. On the other hand, it criminalizes religious convictions if a business does not operate according to the way the city says is” right.

Other megachurch leaders have responded in different ways to the draft ordinance.

Robert Emmitt, who heads the city's largest congregation, Community Bible Church, contacted his council representative to object before the revisions were made but has not joined more vociferous opponents.

Oak Hills Church pastors didn't campaign against it but its well-known staff minister, Max Lucado, met with Bernal last week and left with conclusions similar to Hagee's.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio continues to study the wording and has not concluded its response, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said last week.

Bernal has met with a number of religious leaders, including Phil Sevila of the Texas Leadership Coalition, a Catholic lay organization.

While glad the “word or deed” phrasing is gone, Sevila said he will continue to oppose it.

“This type of ordinance is widely known around the country as resulting in reverse discrimination and so under no circumstances are we going to support it,” he said. “Will they look at Pastor Hagee's comments today? I don't know. But this kind of incremental change does not make it acceptable.”

alevy@express-news.net

Editor's note: This story has been changed to clarify pastor John Hagee's statement on a proposed ordinance that seeks to protect the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in San Antonio.